From the very beginning, when our town was a drained swamp off of Onondaga Lake, this is the place where we convened, gathered, mourned and celebrated. The center of community life.

Here, the first settlement commenced, of what was to be a village, then a city.

Here, government buildings rose and commerce began.

Here, many of the dramas that make up the history of Syracuse’s heritage were played, from the stagecoaches arriving to the old hotels, to the Erie Canal packet boats, to huge military encampments, the farmers market, hot-air balloon ascensions, political rallies and most recently, outdoor shows, such as jazz and blues festivals and the public wakes for 9/11.

Syracuse grew from the place where Salina and Genesee Streets cross. The Erie Canal arrived in 1825 and transformed Clinton Square into the “hub of the city,” the “birthplace of commerce,” the “busiest place in town,” to borrow a handful of historic references.

Historians tell us this crossroads, Salina and Genesee, is “an historical place in Syracuse, as it was the first building lot sold.” The seller was Abraham Walton, one of our earliest investors in real estate. In 1805, Henry Bogardus bought half an acre in Block 81, now home to The Post-Standard.

In 1806, he built the Mansion House. The settlement took the name of “Bogardus Corners.”

In 1844, the Mansion House was replaced by the Empire House, a large hotel and business block that stretched around the northwest corner, from Genesee to Salina. The Empire block stood until it was destroyed by fire in 1942, only to be replaced by the Atlantic Building, predecessor of the modern newspaper block.

And then, and then ...

Over time, Block 81 sat witness to the history enacted in the square, right in its front yard: dedication of the Soldiers and Sailors Civil War monument in 1910 to lighting of the municipal Christmas tree to closing of the canal (in 1910) to creation of the large public park that flows across the buried canal bed.

We get an interesting sense of the many changes on our large municipal stage in the description of the seemingly idyllic neighborhood provided by historian Franklin Chase. This was how Syracuse looked to one observer in 1830:

“A quaint and pretty village when the sun shone and dried up the mud holes, here and there, bits of the square bordered by tiny white houses with green blinds, each with a little garden in front and white picket fence ...

“There were still to be found native forest trees within a few hundred feet of the village center, and forking turnpikes...The first village streets were arched with trees.”